Tale of an Ordinary Cultivator

“This lowly one pays my respect to the two esteemed cultivator sirs!” the village head, Shan Shou, prostrated before the duo.

Behind him, the various elders of the village quickly followed suit.

“We pay our respects to the two esteemed cultivator sirs!”

“Rise,” Zhao Yunxiao answered nonchalantly.

After all, this was not the first time that he had been addressed in such a manner by ordinary mortals.

Right now, the group was in the village centre – a huge hut made of nothing but straws, sticks, and mud.

Everyone had gathered immediately after getting wind of the duo’s arrival at the village.

But due to the limited size of the hut, only the elders were allowed to enter the hut for a meeting, while the others could only wait anxiously outside the hut for an update.

“Are you the one who sent a request for help?” Zhao Yunxiao asked.

“That’s me,” Shan Shou nodded stiffly after sitting back up. “Truth be told, I have never expected to receive a response. I have to say that this is truly a huge surprise!”

The village head, Shan Shou, was a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties. He had a burly build and slightly curled short hair, though his lips were parched just like Shan Ruixiong’s.

It was not just them, either.

The rest of the villagers had similarly parched lips – a clear symptom of dehydration.

“You don’t have to be too nervous,” Zhao Yunxiao assured. “For starters, why don’t you tell me more about your village and how this came to become an issue?”

Huu-!

“I understand,” Shan Shou replied after taking a deep breath. “You might think that our village looks very barren right now, but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, we used to always enjoy plentiful rainfall, and our village is always filled with lush greenery. But for some reason, the rain suddenly stopped falling around nine months ago. This severely impacted our crops, forcing us to look for new sources of food and water from deep within the forest. As you know, the forest is not exactly the safest place as well. Now, not only do we have to deal with the lack of water, we also have to face the danger of encountering various beasts...”

As he spoke, Zhao Yunxiao could see the various elders nodding away in agreement.

At the same time, their eyes started to glaze out, as though they were getting lost in fond memories of the past.

“Do you have any inkling as to what could have possibly caused this?” Zhao Yunxiao continued asking.

“What could have possibly caused this...?” Shan Shou did not quite understand. “Do you mean to say that someone in our village could have done something that incurred the wrath of the heavens?”

“No, let’s put it this way instead. Do you remember if there were any strange incidents during the time when the rain first stopped falling?” Zhao Yunxiao rephrased his question.

“Strange incidents?” Shan Shou rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Now that you mention it, I do recall something that was slightly out of the ordinary.”

“Please do tell,” Zhao Yunxiao prompted.

“I’m not sure if esteemed cultivator sir knows this, but our village seldom gets visitors. Therefore, every visitor to our village will naturally stand out,” Shan Shou started. “And several months ago, there was a strange merchant who visited our village.”

“A strange merchant? In what way was he strange?” Zhao Yunxiao probed further.

“Hah, where shall I start?” Shan Shou chuckled. “As a merchant, he did not try to sell us anything even when we asked about his goods. He wore a veil over his face, looked anxious, and even seemed to be injured. But when we offered to examine his condition, he only got irritated and told us not to assume things, claiming that there was nothing wrong with him. He only stayed a single night, but his strange demeanour still left a deep impression on all of us.”

“Hmm, that does sound a little strange,” Zhao Yunxiao mused. “What do you think, Senior Martial Brother Nie?”

“Did the rain stop right after he came?” Nie Hanchang inquired.

“That I don’t quite remember...” Shan Shou smiled wryly. “All I remember was that there was a bright shooting star that night. Back then, I still thought that was a sign that the merchant was our lucky star. Oh, how wrong I was!”

“Is there anything else?” Zhao Yunxiao asked.

“Not that I remember,” Shan Shou scratched his cheek in embarrassment. “That said, the drought might be bad, but it is not without any benefits as well. At the very least, bandit activity in the area has stopped altogether now. I guess even the bandits have left since this area has been reduced to such a state, hah!”

“That is inconsequential in comparison to the sufferings that we are going through, Village Head...” one of the elders reminded from behind.

“Yes, yes, I know. Don’t you see that the esteemed cultivator sirs are already here to help us with that? Stop whining about it already,” Shan Shou chided.

“It’s good that you can still bring yourself to be slightly positive about the situation,” Zhao Yunxiao said with a smile. “Unfortunately, those things you mentioned do not strike me as possible reasons for the sudden shortage of rain. We can help you to summon a bit of rain now that we are here, but we cannot give you any promises for the future.”

“You can help to summon rain?” Shan Shou beamed upon hearing that, as did the elders behind him. “Don’t worry about the future! I’m sure this drought will not last much longer, so it would be good enough as long as you can help to tide us over this difficult period!”

“Then, shall we get started?” Zhao Yunxiao stood up.

“Will you be starting right now?” Shan Shou was slightly taken aback. “Is there no need to wait for an auspicious time or something?”

“Why? Would you prefer to wait?” Zhao Yunxiao asked in a teasing manner.

“No, no! The sooner the better! The sooner the better!” Shan Shou hurriedly waved his hands. “Is there anything you’d need from us, then?”

“Don’t worry about that, and just try not to disturb us later. You can even wait here if you want to,” Zhao Yunxiao smiled. “Let’s go, Senior Martial Brother Nie. Let’s get this over and done with.”

The duo walked out of the hut and walked around the village, finally coming to a stop in the middle of a large field.

Even though Zhao Yunxiao had told them that they could just wait patiently, Shan Shou and the other elders could not help following out of curiosity.

Similarly, the other villagers also lingered around to watch.

Still, all of them took note to keep a distance from the duo, afraid that their presence would result in some form of distraction.

“Here?” Nie Hanchang asked while looking around.

They were currently standing in the middle of a field that was covered in wilting grass. There were also various barren spots in the field, showing where the grass had already completely died off.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Zhao Yunxiao shrugged. “Now then, what do you know about rain dances, Senior Martial Brother Nie?”

“Are you testing me now, Junior Martial Brother Zhao?” Nie Hanchang smirked. “Isn’t the dance part just for show?”

“A necessary show, nevertheless,” Zhao Yunxiao smiled in response.

It was not too difficult for cultivators to summon regular rain.

Of course, only the peak cultivators were able to truly accomplish this with a single thought.

Things were not as easy for the weaker ones like Zhao Yunxiao, but there were still various ways to do so as long as they possessed the right knowledge and tools at their disposal.

And the most common method involved the use of arrays to gather the moisture in the air, directly turning them into rainclouds.

This meant that all cultivators needed was knowledge of the required array and the relevant tools to set it up.

In other words, it was about having both information and resources at hand.

As for the dance part, that was largely a farce to make ordinary mortals feel better about the situation.

After all, effective as it might be, the entire process would seem rather underwhelming if cultivators simply set things up and activate the array before stepping aside.

Should they do that, some ordinary mortals might even end up feeling unappreciative of the cultivators’ work, thinking that they had barely done anything at all!

But how would they understand the various intricacies involved in the setting up of an array, or the delicate touches required during the activation process?

What made it worse was that requests for rain were usually only required in barren locations that had a very sparse density of world origin energy to begin with.

Arrays activated under such conditions had to be mostly powered by talismans and spirit stones, which in turn translated to a heavy expenditure that most of these ordinary mortals could never afford even after working for an entire lifetime.

To prevent these people from not even feeling appreciation for the help, cultivators eventually came up with the concept of a seemingly-complicated rain dance to shut them up once and for all!

Of course, there was also a small minority who truly possessed special techniques to summon rain, and some of these techniques had moves that resembled a dance.

In fact, that was how the term rain dance had begun propagating in the first place, inspiring others to simply adopt the naming convention out of convenience!

“Do you want to try setting it up?” Zhao Yunxiao suggested.

Since Nie Hanchang had taken the effort to study the execution of rain dances, Zhao Yunxiao did not want his efforts to go to waste.

“Then I would have to rely on Junior Martial Brother Zhao to correct my mistakes,” Nie Hanchang did not turn down this opportunity to practise.

With that, Zhao Yunxiao passed Nie Hanchang a set of array flags, which the latter in turn planted around the open area.

Of course, this was not done in a haphazard manner.

Nie Hanchang might not be an array master, but he still understood the fundamentals.

He carefully investigated the area with his spiritual sense, planting each array flag only after numerous calculations based on the flow of world origin energy in their surroundings.

Zhao Yunxiao watched him closely from the beginning, and was pleased to see that Nie Hanchang did not commit any huge mistakes.

The manner in which he had set up the array was not the most ideal, but it also would not cause any big problems, at least not when they were at a terrain as simple as this.

Perhaps the only problem would be a slightly higher inefficiency in terms of energy consumption.

Zhao Yunxiao felt a slight heartache when he thought about the extra spirit stones that would be required because of this, but eventually decided not to stop Nie Hanchang.

Sometimes, it was best to allow others to accomplish things on their own. This way, the boost of confidence they got from the success would propel their interest further, allowing them to do even better in the future!

Thankfully, the sect did allow disciples to claim part of their expenditure on top of the existing mission reward – something that they had implemented for missions that were about helping out the suffering commoners, all in order to encourage participation from disciples.

And to maximise his gains from such missions, Zhao Yunxiao usually tried to spend less resources than the claimable amount.

Unfortunately, it would seem like he would have to settle for a slightly lower net profit this time around...

“How did I do?” Nie Hanchang walked back to Zhao Yunxiao.

“There are still areas for improvement, but definitely passable,” Zhao Yunxiao answered with a smile. “Have you considered pursuing a career in this field?”

“Spare me,” Nie Hanchang rolled his eyes.

“Haha, fine. But it truly isn’t too bad – good enough for today, at the very least,” Zhao Yunxiao laughed. “All right then, shall we get started with the show?”

With that, Zhao Yunxiao turned around to look at the village head, Shan Shou, who was watching from a distance with the other villagers.

“If you are all right with it, I will commence with the rain dance,” Zhao Yunxiao said.

“Please do, esteemed cultivator sir!” Shan Shou gave a deep bow, and the other villagers quickly followed suit.

“Understood,” Zhao Yunxiao nodded.

“Is there anything you’d like me to do?” Nie Hanchang asked.

“Just do whatever to make yourself look important,” Zhao Yunxiao shrugged.

“Look important?”

Zhao Yunxiao did not give Nie Hanchang any time to think things through. With a flick of his wrists, he pulled out a horsetail whisk and raised it high into the air.

“Gods of the heavens and earth, heed my call!” Zhao Yunxiao shouted loudly.

At the same time, he lightly tapped on the ground with his foot, silently activating the array that Nie Hanchang had just completed.

Weng-!

An emblem of light promptly appeared on the ground with a low buzz, appearing as though the world itself was showing a response to Zhao Yunxiao’s call.